Psalm 65, Isaiah 55.10-13, Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity: Sea Sunday, 12th July 2020
Keasden, Austwick and online
You still the raging of the seas, the roaring of their waves and the clamour of the peoples.
You visit the earth and water it; you make it very plenteous. The river of God is full of water.
You prepare grain for your people, for so you provide for the earth. (Psalm 65)
Today is Sea Sunday, when we may reflect on the elemental forces of life around us, how much we rely on them and on those who work in them. The Mission to Seafarers is keen to remind us that each day we depend on seafarers for our daily food, that so much of what we eat is brought to us by seafarers, through sometimes dangerous and often difficult waters. Elemental waters - great forces of nature, strong in power and great in magnitude. Today, we think of those who spend their working lives in them: ships crews vulnerable to the weather, to international pirates, to maltreatment by their employers, to poverty, fatigue, homesickness and loneliness. [1]
In this time of the coronavirus seafarers are more exposed than ever. In Europe’s busiest port, Rotterdam, a Mission to Seafarers chaplain Reverend Dennis Woodward recently shared how ‘Some have reported non-payment of wages, or contracts being extended without consent. Other seafarers have been stranded in foreign ports without wages or flights home.’ Many of the seafarers who work the container ships have not been ashore in months – and may not be able to land for some time yet; all are missing their families who are often thousands of miles away, in countries that are in lockdown; troubled that they can’t offer their families protection. [2]
And so, on Sea Sunday let us reacquaint ourselves with the Jesus who preached on the shores and sailed in the Sea of Galilee; the Jesus who recruited the fishermen Simon and Andrew, James and John from beside the sea, the Jesus who famously walked on water, calmed the storm, provided the disciples with a boatload of fish, the resurrected Lord who cooked breakfast on the beach for his awestruck followers: the Jesus who lived with the elemental forces of physical nature, nurtured and used them, at times transcended them by his divine power, for his divine purposes.
In today's Gospel reading we find Jesus doing what he did so often: standing in a boat at the edge of the lake, telling a story about a human being and the elemental force of physical nature - a story about a sower going out to sow; which was really another way of telling them about another elemental force at work in the world: the Spirit of God, and the nature of his power. It's a story full of surprises. [3]
In the Parable of the Sower we can see at least two twists that would have struck Jesus' audience. The first is that this sower apparently did nothing to prepare his field. He didn’t clear any rocks or pull any weeds; he didn’t plough the soil to soften the earth and bury the remaining weeds. Not bothered with any of this, he simply went out into a field with a lot of rocks and weeds and trampled down, hard ground, and flung the seed to the four winds, happy for it to land anywhere.
And Jesus' audience would have been jolted by the ending of this story: that the good soil produces thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold. This is an unheard-of harvest! In our modern times of heavy, mechanised agriculture we would expect that sort of outcome. But in Jesus' day, thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold would be an outrageous expectation for a harvest. It's like the crazy catch of fish which Jesus arranged for his disciples on the Sea of Galilee - an unprecedented amount.
There's something elemental going on here. It's the primal forces of the Spirit of God at work in the world, told through the parable of a Prodigal Sower, who doesn't seem to care where he throws his seed. The parable of the Prodigal Sower teaches us that, just as there is an unlimited supply of water in the sea and the sky, so there is an unlimited supply of love and mercy, in Christ. This sower's seeds - of love and mercy - will never run out. God will 'sow' them absolutely everywhere, because there are no limits to God's generosity. In the Spirit of Christ, God's love and mercy do not give out, and one day will yield a fantastic harvest.
The elemental nature of the flesh is that it severely limits such love, mercy and grace, as we human beings get caught up in desires and obsessions which cause conflicts between us. We restrict the amount of grace available to others; we ring-fence salvation. Philippino seamen stuck in Rotterdam, why should I care about them? But by the elemental nature of the Holy Spirit God's love, mercy and grace are available to all, without exception, without prejudice. The Mission to Seafarers get this, a Christian agency operating in more than 230 ports, caring for the practical and spiritual welfare of seafarers of all nationalities and faiths. [4]
So let us pray for those who work out in the elements - on the land, here and across the world, and those who make a vulnerable living out on the seas and the oceans, often immersed in dangerous and difficult waters. And let us pray and practically support those who spend their days sharing with them God’s unlimited love.
Notes
Adapted from The Elemental Jesus, preached in Devon, Sea Sunday 2011.
[1] The Mission to Seafarers lists Abandonment, Communications, Fatigue, Mental Health, Piracy and Shipwreck as the issues facing seafarers with whom they work.
[2] Karen McVeigh, ‘One seafarer almost cried’: the last chaplain visiting quarantined boats. Guardian, 1 April 2020.
[3] ‘The Prodigal Sower’ passages borrow from my 2005 sermon, The Prodigal Sower which is a rewrite of Paul Nuechterlein, The Prodigal Sower (2002).
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